How to prove ROI of your corporate training

Implementing or even making changes to the process of internal training often demands time and a persistent attitude within L&D or HR. The reason is that even though management might see the necessity for training the lack of ability to report ROI means that other projects often end up receiving the financial resources. Let's have a look at some of the options to prove ROI due to the options provided by learning management systems fit for the Modern Digital Workplace.

From onsite to online training

As an organization develops and grows there is often an increasing need for knowledge retention and sharing. Some organizations experience that this positive organizational development has a negative effect on their cost for training, especially if they are dependent on classroom training.

The investment for classroom training includes the organizations planning for the specific session, the time spent on learners travelling to join the session, and the actual time spent investing to participate in the session. All of which decrease the change for a positive ROI.

The solution is to move training from physical locations to an online academy thereby opening a door with multiple options to achieve a positive ROI within corporate training. Not only does an online academy eliminate the costs associated with training drastically, but it also provides learners to fit learning to their own schedules. As organizations are able to provide training 24/7, on any device, and whenever you want has given learners an option to learn in their own pace and also focus on their own personal learning curve. As an extra bonus companies that focus on being sustainable can show a significant decrease in the amount of CO2, as it’s no longer necessary for learners to travel to participate in classroom training.

Cut down on support hours

When compliance training is on the table there is no discussion whether it’s nice to have or need to have. However, when L&D recommend training courses that upgrade employee skills within the Office suite or other internal every day systems it’s often met with a maybe-next-year-attitude.

A topic that might help persuade management is looking at employee retention. This topic is highly valued in many organizations today and providing employees with the option to develop and upgrade their skills is among one of the possibilities rated highest. However, to prove ROI of implementing this type of training L&D should consider joining forces with IT. As employees receive training, they become less dependent on support from the IT department thereby cutting down the hours for internal support and leaving room for other more important things within the IT department. IT often keeps track of their incoming support cases already which will make it even easier to provide statics that proves the importance and advantage of implementing this type of training.

Track your KPI’s

Being able to report an increase in employee performance and engagement is great. However, being able to show ROI is considered much more useful to management. When measuring effectiveness of training you need to figure out what effect you expect to see in regard to results. Setting up key performance indicators (KPI’s) is helpful when evaluating the overall business performance but in particular the corporate training efficiency. Establishing a combination of bottom line KPI’s, performance improvement KPI’s and quality improvement KPI’s helps in the process of measuring ROI.

However, collecting data is essential to track your KPI’s. When choosing a learning management system, it should therefore be among the top priority to ensure easy access to reporting tools as for example PowerBI. LMS365 offers a seamless integration of Microsoft’s business analytics service PowerBI meaning that checking up on your KPI’s is just a click away. We offer ready-made templates ensuring you can provide visual reports as the training process moves along.

The fact that L&D is met with demands to prove ROI could previously be viewed as unrealistic and to be honest quite unfair. However, especially with analytical and statistical tools provided within the best learning management tools there is no longer a reason for L&D to throw in the towel when met with these demands. Now they are not only able to prove that corporate training can increase business performance but even back it up with numbers that prove the importance of investing in L&D projects.